Ellery Cozumopolaus-Smith
Epilogue
One year later
* * *
“Babe?” Sammy called as she let herself into the house. “I’m home. It was a false alarm. The goats were fine. You’d think Jax would know by now when Thor is faking a limp for attention.”
She managed to shuck off her boots and put them on the tray just inside the door before a blur of fur and paws raced down the stairs to greet her.
“Yes. Hello. It’s been a whole hour since I’ve seen you,” she crooned, ruffling Sergeant Powell’s fluffy face. Sixty-five pounds of mutt scrabbled at her legs, deliriously thrilled to see her. “Where’s your daddy?”
Holly the cat meandered by, shooting her a disinterested look.
Sammy looked up expecting to see her grumpy boyfriend standing in the doorway to his office, the former sun porch. But he wasn’t there. The house was also tidier than when she’d left. Fresh wood crackled and split in the fireplace. Neat stacks of glasses and dishes lined the buffet in the dining room. And the pot of corn chowder that she was going to start when she came home simmered on the new range.
A year later and she was still tickled by the fact that Ryan’s favorite way to spoil her was to chip away at her chore list. His patented “useful romance” had made Eva Cardona’s latest grumpy hero a huge hit with readers.
“Ryan?” she called.
McClane poked his head out from under the Christmas tree, then returned to batting at a cat ornament.
Instrumental Christmas music played on the wireless speakers Ryan had insisted on during the spring renovation.
She really only had to open some wine, pull out the appetizers she’d made, and don her pajamas to be ready for their Christmas Eve Happy Hour. Their second together. Last year, things had been a little awkward, what with Ryan’s family worried that he’d jumped head-first into a life crisis and Sammy’s mother complaining about all the work a farm sanctuary was going to take for no gain whatsoever.
This year would be easier. Tonight was just friends, and babies, and dogs. Tomorrow, they would enjoy brunch with her parents and head to Philadelphia for Ryan’s family’s festivities.
The front door flew open behind her, allowing a gust of winter air inside.
Ryan, looking ruggedly delicious in jeans and a heavy farm coat, stomped snow off his boots. “It’s about damn time,” he complained.
“What? Miss me already?” she teased.
He looked down at her, gray eyes fierce and hot.
She couldn’t help herself. She gravitated to him, toward that grumpy mouth of his and rose on tiptoe. He didn’t seem to mind it when she slid her arms around his waist.
The kiss was hot and hard and over much too fast.
“Let’s go, Sparkle,” he said, pulling away and giving her arms a squeeze.
“Go?” she repeated.
Sarge the dog gave a happy bark and danced out the door on the porch.
“You and me and Sarge,” Ryan said, pulling her scarf off the rack and winding it around her neck. “We’ve got just enough time for an afternoon ride before we’re forced to spread holiday cheer.”
He made drinking alcohol and eating snacks in their pajamas sound like a hardship.
“What kind of ride?” she asked, hiding her grin.
“The kind where you put your boots back on and we go outside.”
“Oh. That kind of ride.”
One of the best surprises of the past year was just how involved with the sanctuary Ryan got. He didn’t just keep the books. He fed the animals. Shoveled manure. Collected eggs. And, yes, even rode the horses. They had two now.
Plus four cows, three pigs, two sheep, a flock of ducks that welcomed Willis like family, a pair of cantankerous donkeys, and a three-legged goat named Mabel. Not bad for only having been incorporated for six months.
“Are you sure you don’t want to use the time preparing?” Sammy asked.
He glanced down at his watch, then picked up her boots and handed them to her. “Preparations are done. We’re burning daylight, Sam.”
“Okay. I guess we’re going for a ride,” she laughed.
She dragged on her boots and let her handsome boyfriend haul her back out the door. The dog trotted on their heels, pausing every few feet to shove his face in the snow.
He had Magnolia and Teddy saddled and tethered just inside the fence.
“Wow, you really mean business, don’t you?” she asked.
“Damn right I do. I’ve never been more serious in my life,” he said, patting his jacket pockets. He seemed tense.
“Is everything, okay?” she asked, unlatching the gate.
“Everything is fine,” he said, not sounding fine at all as he untethered both horses. Maggie nudged Teddy, the big chestnut bay, with her nose and snorted softly.
Sammy gave her mount a pat on the neck and swung up into the saddle.
“Let’s go this way,” Ryan said, pointing to the north.
The snow was falling in fat, lazy flakes, landing with a hush on the already white carpet. They rode across the field in silence, Sammy feeling more and more nervous with each creak of the saddle.
“You’re not bringing me out here to murder me, are you?” she asked suddenly.
He glanced at her and waited a suspiciously long time before responding. “Why would I do that?”
“That wasn’t a no!”
He sighed. “No, Sam. I’m not taking you out here to murder you.”
Was he breaking up with her? Hadn’t he broken up with his old girlfriend just before Christmas? If he’d orchestrated a romantic snowy ride on Christmas Eve to break up with her, Ryan Sosa was the one getting murdered out here.
He patted a hand over his pocket again. She wondered if he had a murder weapon tucked inside his coat.
“You can’t murder me and you can’t break up with me on horseback on Christmas Eve,” she said.
“Relax, Sam.”
“You relax. You’re the one who looks like he’s sweating through his long johns.”
“I’m completely relaxed!” His mount shook its huge head as if to disagree.
“Oh, yeah. You sound like it,” she scoffed.
“You’re going to feel like a jerk in about ten seconds,” Ryan warned her as they began to crest the hill. They were heading toward a neighboring plot of land that Sammy had her eye on for future expansion.
“I find that hard to be—”
Well, hell.
“Oh, now you’re quiet,” Ryan teased.
She was too busy feeling like a jerk as she took in the scene before them to answer. There was a gate in the fence where there hadn’t been one three days ago. Above the gate, carved in wood was a sign that said Down on the Farm. It was wrapped in fairy lights and evergreen boughs. Candles flickered in glass jars in the snow.
Sarge jogged out in front of them and turned around, his tail wagging.
“What is this?” she asked.
Ryan dismounted next to her, then reached up and plucked her off her horse.
He took her trembling hand in his and led her toward the gate.
“A year ago, I was fired. Depressed. Pissed off about having to fly across the country to this hippie holiday hellhole,” he said.